“Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias” is a tag here, representing the sarcastic like EA uses periodically to mock the stubborn gaslighters who insist against overwhelming evidence that we have a benign, honest, objective journalistic establishment when we do not, much to the nation’s despond. Sometimes the metaphorical smoking guns are more choking than others. (One of the reasons I will not be watching tonight’s “debate” is because I fully expect the smoke to be especially thick.)
The New York Times just demonstrated how the more repulsive proclivities of the pack you hang out with can cause you to inherit those proclivities without even being fully aware of what has happened. One way of describing this phenomenon is “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas,” but I love dogs, and Spuds just spent the night sleeping by me.
Above you see the first two tries by the New York Times to describe the wholly deserved and expected defeat of Rep. Jamaal Bowman, he of The Squad and “Fire alarm? What fire alarm?” infamy. Oopsie! As many pointed out, what the Times did was “blame the Jeeeeeews!” for Bowman’s loss, essentially the same claim fellow Squad demagogue and anti-Semite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made while campaigning for her buddy. While Bowman’s victorious opponent did receive a lot of donations and support from Pro-Israel (that is, anti-terrorism) interests like AIPAC, there is no evidence at all that Bowman’s decisive loss wouldn’t have occurred without it. As one wag wrote on social media, “‘Overtaken by Flood of Pro-Israel Money’…That’s quite a way to write: “More people voted for his opponent than for him.”
Another wrote, “Did AIPAC make Bowman pull the fire alarm? Did AIPAC make Bowman vote against the Biden infrastructure bill? Did AIPAC make Bowman’s colleagues censure him? Did AIPAC make Bowman promote 9/11 conspiracy theories? He was just bad at this and the Democratic process works.”
Bingo. However, the Times editors and others felt no pinging of their ethics alarms while publishing a headline that had obvious anti-Semitic vibrations. The fact that the headline was changed after others had to point this out is damning
Ethics Alarms 
Cortez is interesting. This all may be apocryphal, but it’s my understanding that the Spaniards who moved to the Caribbean, particularly Cuba, were in large part Jews escaping the Inquisition. One of my Castro Brothers fleeing Cuban high school buddies told me any Spanish name ending is “z” is a Jewish name. All my Cuban buddies are doctors and lawyers and MBAs because that’s what they were supposed to be. Who knows. The Cubans were known as “the Jews of the Caribbean” in prior, less politically correct times. Our landlord in Miami was what was then known as a “Jewban.” Ms. Cortez seems tragically unaware of her likely heritage. Of course, self-awareness is never the forte of a lefty.
Have you seen the brain-exploding video of AOC jumping around like demented cheerleader at a Bowman rally? I just finished a running a seminar on legal professionalism: elected officials behaving so unprofessionally makes me physically ill. Naturally AOC, being completely unfit for office and not comprehending the duties of leadership, defended her juvenile perambulations, which were approximately as appropriate for her office as Elizabeth Warren doing a belly dance.
Your brain probably exploded before you got to her speech. It was even worse. She really went into the money angle in it too. Remember, their donations from extremists is just democracy working, but donations to any opponents is a threat to democracy.
I’m more convinced than ever that she was just chosen as an actress. There is a lengthy video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huwdv8aBQfk that lays out that theory. Very long, but I think the length is needed to cover the topic. The premise is that she was cast in the role by people who are lack the public appearance qualities needed to run. So they did auditions and found her. It makes sense from the perspective that she sounds like an idiot, but regularly has highly intelligent sound bites. Those sound bites are just whispered in her ear and used when instructed.
Or she just sometimes says smart things and sometimes says stupid things–like most people (not including Michael Knowles).
“Have you seen the brain-exploding video of AOC jumping around like demented cheerleader at a Bowman rally?“
Seems it hasn’t escaped a POUNCING by the indefatigable Babylon Bee:
Republicans Raise Money To Send AOC To Dance For All Democratic Candidates
PWS
Finally we agree on something. Bowman was a clown. I am usually more approving of AOC than many, but her support of him was embarrassing, and it hurts Democrats’ larger argument against Trump. We have been trying to convince Republicans on the fence about voting for Trump that at a certain point, character and respect for democracy should matter more than policy. If a politician tries to obstruct a proceeding, as Bowman did with his fire alarm stunt, that should be disqualifying, even if that politician will help us get the policy results we want. I’ve heard some things about Lattimer that lead me to believe he’s a bit too conservative for me, but he’s never done anything to indicate the irresponsibility and disrespect for democracy that Bowman has demonstrated, so I would have voted for Lattimer, and I wouldn’t have needed AIPAC money to convince me to do it.
Question: would you consider him anti-Semitic? How about the other members of the Squad?
I’m not informed enough about Bowman’s rhetoric to say–do you have a specific statement in mind? I think the way in which ones talks about AIPAC and Israel certainly can be antisemtiic, though not all criticism of them is. Omar’s “all about the Benjamins” line was definitely antisemitic, although I think she apologized. Rashida Tlaib is definitely an antisemite with her unapologoetic defense of “from the river to the sea.” I believe I have seen AOC call out antisemitism on the left but I don’t think she has attacked the other squad members by name, and her continued association and defense of them weakens her position. But she is also stalwartly defending Biden from the “Genocide Joe” crowd, so that earns her some points with me. I think she and Bernie both are smarter politicians than most of their ilk.
Good answer and analysis. I agree with all of it.
“We have been trying to convince Republicans on the fence about voting for Trump that at a certain point, character and respect for democracy should matter more than policy.”
Sorry, but after the tooth-and-nail defense of adulterer and perjurer Clinton, never mind the near-pedophile Joe, the left doesn’t get to argue that character counts. Respect for democracy? After the riots and mob rule and using various groups like antifa and BLM as Democratic party militias in 2020? Sorry, I just can’t accept that. You’re going to have to convince me how those episodes are different than the right-wing disrespect you cite before I can buy that argument.
I was talking about a similarity between left-wing and right-wing disrespect of democracy when I commented on the Bowman fire alarm stunt, not a difference. I don’t want to turn every conversation I’m involved in into “why the left is better than the right” so I’m not going to take some of Ryan’s advice and let that go for the moment.